Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area and Girlstart receive more than $100,000 total for educational programming

Austin, TX. - At Game On! Texas, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the AMD Foundation has awarded a $75,000 grant to Girlstart and a $32,500 grant to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area to support game design education programs for the two nonprofits. AMD also contributed funds for the creation of technology labs at both groups’ Austin facilities.

The grants were awarded in support of AMD’s education initiative, AMD Changing the Game, which is designed to inspire students’ interest in STEM skill learning by creating video games.

“Students today are digital learners, and video games are their 21st-century chalkboard,” said Allyson Peerman, President of the AMD Foundation. “As Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Girlstart have discovered, game design teaches kids valuable math, science, problem-solving and collaboration skills. More importantly, games have been shown to engage students in learning. We are proud to support these two organizations as they bring game design education to more and more of America’s youth.”

The Girlstart grant will be used to fund the expansion of Girlstart’s renowned Summer Camp program in five communities across the nation. Girlstart Summer Camps are week-long educational programs for 4th through 10th graders, developed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects and careers. Game development is the cornerstone of the camps. Each girl in Summer Camp develops, programs, and builds her own game—based around each week’s STEM content theme—and explores STEM content through Girlstart’s rich toolbox of game development tools. The camps will serve an estimated 150 girls around the nation and will be held in proximity to AMD sites in Silicon Valley, CA; Bellevue, WA; Ft. Collins, CO; Orlando, FL and Boston, MA.

“Gaming and game design are integral parts of our curriculum for inspiring girls to pursue STEM careers, and through this grant from AMD, we’ll reach a greater group of girls across the nation,” said Tamara Hudgins, Executive Director of Girlstart. “STEM education is vitally important, and we’re excited for the opportunity this grant affords us to create a fantastic program for advancing STEM education for girls.”

The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area will receive a technology center valued at $25,000 and $7,500 to fund the implementation of the Game Tech curriculum to Club members.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Game Tech curriculum offers Club members ages 9-13 the opportunity to explore video game design and teaches systems thinking, introductory programming and problem-solving skills. The program is also designed to expose members to gaming career fields.

This grant marks the continuation of an ongoing relationship between AMD and Boys & Girls Clubs of America, to establish 10 additional Game Tech programs nationwide by the end of 2011.

“The Game Tech program has already proven to be a winning combination of learning and fun for kids at other Clubs where it has been implemented,” said Adine Zornow, director of corporate development for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. “We are proud to continue our relationship with AMD, offering the young people we serve across Austin greater access to technology and most importantly the opportunity to leverage skills that will lead them all to a more successful future.”
AMD Changing the Game

AMD Changing the Game is designed to take gaming beyond entertainment and inspire youth to learn critical education and life skills by equipping them to create digital games with social content. The program’s purpose is to promote the use of youth game development as a tool to inspire learning and improve science, technology, education and math (STEM) skills. The initiative is rooted in AMD’s long history of supporting education, along with the company’s passion and expertise in the graphics processor and gaming industries.
Since its launch in June 2008, AMD Changing the Game has:

Funded 33 programs by 21 organizations in the United States, China and Malaysia that enable youth game development
Co-sponsored the U.S. National STEM Video Game Challenge and joined Change the Equation in support of the US Educate to Innovate campaign
Co-sponsored, along with the Entertainment Software Association, The Atlantic Intelligence Series Technologies in Education Forum
Funded the creation and implementation of the Game Tech program at 10 local Boys & Girls Clubs across the country.
Funded the creation of Level Up!, a comprehensive online teaching resource providing curricula and tools for middle and high school educators to teach students video game design and improve their STEM and language arts skills
Funded the creation of a social impact game community within the Gamestar Mechanic game development platform
Funded the creation of the AMD Game Zone within the Whyville.net virtual learning world
Funded the development of the World Wide Workshop Foundation’s Globaloria game-design program for the Southwest Key’s East Austin College Prep Academy in 2009 and 2010
Funded the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers new video game design category for the 2010 and 2011 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Funded Schmahl Science Workshop’s program to develop a sustainable fishing video game to communicate the danger of over fishing to long-term human survival
Co-sponsored the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Games for Change Festival

About the AMD Foundation

The AMD Foundation connects and empowers individuals with knowledge, thereby opening doors to opportunity. The Foundation’s signature program, AMD Changing the Game, supports initiatives designed to help youth harness the power of digital games with social content, while learning critical Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) skills and life skills. The Foundation also funds the AMD Employee Giving Program which supports AMD employees’ community interests by matching their personal donations of time and money to local organizations and schools.

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its groundbreaking AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) that power a wide range of computing devices. AMD’s server computing products are focused on driving industry-leading cloud computing and virtualization environments. AMD’s superior graphics technologies are found in a variety of solutions ranging from game consoles, PCs to supercomputers. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.